Pretty
by KelseyO
Summary: Quinn should have learned to expect the unexpected by now.  Minor spoilers for 2x18.  Lucy Caboosey stuff.  Oneshot.


I watched _A Walk To_ _Remember _the other night. One of the scenes reminded me of the Lucy Caboosey thing. This popped into my head. IDEK.

* * *

><p>The last thing Quinn Fabray expected to do today was sit down in an empty classroom with Lauren Zizes and tell the girl her life's story, but then again, she should have learned to expect the unexpected by now.<p>

She's not sure what to make of Lauren's unflinching poker-face as she tells her everything, from the acne to the excess weight to the nose job, but her voice is starting to quiver from the tears she's holding back and Quinn hopes that alone might persuade her to ease up with this feud of theirs.

"I was a miserable little girl," she finishes quietly, "and now I'm gonna be prom queen." The phrase brings a small smile to her lips but it falters when she sees the smirk on Lauren's face.

"See, I wouldn't be so sure about that." Her tone is calm and calculated, just like Quinn's used to be when she wore her Cheerios uniform, and there's no way that's a good thing. "You think everyone's gonna vote for you because they want to be like you. Well, I don't know if they're gonna want to be like you when they find out that you're a complete _fraud_."

"What are you gonna do?" she asks, trying to sound challenging, but her words are weak and tired.

"If I were you, I'd check the bulletin board."

She barely even registers getting to her feet and bolting from the classroom; it seems like only a split second later when she's sprinting down the hall and trying to ignore the laughs and judgmental looks that are already coming her way as she zeroes in on the school's main bulletin board.

Quinn comes to a screeching halt when she sees it.

Her.

Lucy.

She barely recognizes herself with the brown hair, the braces, and the pudgy cheeks, but at the same time the image is so painfully familiar that her lungs tighten and she can feel her face crumpling. Quinn stares helplessly at the poster for a full three seconds before she remembers that she's a human being with arms and hands; she reaches up and tears it down with everything she's worth and lets it fall to the floor.

And then she runs. She lets a single sob tear through her body and she takes off, using the speed she got from two years of Cheerios workouts to get somewhere she hasn't actually decided on yet, but it doesn't matter as long as it's _away._

When Quinn flies around the corner and right into Rachel Berry, that becomes the _other_ last thing she expected to happen today. What surprises her the most, though, is that the girl doesn't attempt to dodge her, nor does she allow them to collide. She reaches out with both hands and gently grabs Quinn's upper arms to stop her, and even when Quinn's feet have stilled, she doesn't let go.

Rachel just looks at her for a moment, her eyebrows pulled together in concern while the chocolate orbs below them show a similar sentiment.

Quinn knows she could easily shove Rachel off of her and keep sprinting aimlessly through the school because that's what she's good at and that's what she always does, but she somehow feels rooted to the spot by the brunette's grasp.

"Quinn, what's wrong?"

Her breathing is wild and ragged and her eyes are stinging and she can't seem to get any words out of her throat, but Rachel seems to understand that because she takes her hand and pulls her into the nearest bathroom and locks the door.

Quinn flings herself into the first stall and latches it shut before the brunette can turn around. She knows it's immature, not to mention pointless because Rachel already knows she's in there, but she doesn't want anybody to see her like this, freaking out over the latest disaster in her life. Mostly, she just doesn't want to cry in front of the brunette. It's already happened too many times.

She watches Rachel's royal blue flats through the space under the stall door as she takes a few steps closer.

"Quinn?" Her voice is soft, gentle. It's one of those voices that says "Tell me everything and I promise it will all be okay." She wishes she believed that.

She sniffs and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. "Lauren found out," she whispers, and she knows she's being vague but she's really not in the mood to recount her entire childhood again. "And now everybody knows."

"Lucy," Rachel breathes, so quietly that Quinn almost doesn't hear her, but her ears manage to catch the two syllables and her eyes widen.

"How did you...?"

"I was in your class in fourth grade. I'd heard people talk about you before so I knew who you were the moment you sat at your desk on the first day of school."

Quinn scoffs through her tears. "Yeah, you recognized the fat girl with the bad complexion. That makes me feel so much better."

"Quinn, I recognized you because I knew you had brown hair and braces and glasses." Rachel pauses and shifts on her feet a little. "To be honest, I didn't understand why people were saying all of those things about you. I thought you were quite pretty."

"You're lying," Quinn mutters, wiping at the dampness on her cheeks.

"I'm not." Rachel sighs. "You were pretty, Quinn. And you still are. You always have been." There's a short silence before she continues. "I know this probably isn't much of a pep-talk coming from someone who gets called RuPaul and Stubbles..."

Quinn flinches at the nicknames she coined herself.

"...but I just want you to know that—no matter what you look like—there's always going to be one person who thinks you're pretty."

Rachel's feet vanish and Quinn hears her leave the bathroom, and when she's surrounded in silence again, she almost wonders if she just imagined that entire thing.

She dries her eyes with some toilet paper and finally emerges from the stall so she can wash her face. As the water blurs her vision she peers into the mirror, trying to imagine herself with her natural hair color, with glasses instead of contacts, with pudge instead of toned muscle, tries to imagine people calling her Lucy again, and tries to stick the word "pretty" in there somewhere, but it all turns to mush in her head.

When she blinks the moisture away Quinn is staring back at her again, blond and athletic and clear-skinned and _popular_. Quinn, who would probably make fun of Lucy if she ever got the chance.

She looks at herself, this Version 2.0, and she's still not sure she likes what she sees.

* * *

><p>This is the only story in which I will ever acknowledge Lucy Caboosey, just so we're clear. Like I said above, I watched AWTR for like the billionth time and the scene where they photoshop the pictures of Jamie and then she starts to run away and Landon is <em>right there<em> (my favorite scene of the entire movie) made me imagine Quinn running away and Rachel being _right there_ and basically that's why this exists.

Also I skipped most of the second season so I wasn't sure if people called Lauren by her first or last name. Forgive me if that aspect is inaccurate.

I promise I'm still working on chapter 12 of Pink. I just wanted to get this plot bunny out of the way. Also I have another short Faberry story planned after Pink so keep an eye out for it or Author Alert me or something, if you feel so inclined.


End file.
